Through some twist of lucky faith, I had the immense privilege of serving as column editor for Henry Jenkins way back when I first started working on Flow. One of my favorite pieces was one discussing the problem of Sarah Silverman’s film, Jesus is Magic.
We recently ran a kind of “greatest hits” issue, and […]
I’m sorry, but how did someone cast Matthew Lillard, Burt Reynolds, Ray Liotta, and Ron Perlman all in one movie? How? Is it even conceivable to watch the trailer for In the Name of the King and not suspect, strongly, that it’s the work of some mash up genius? But, no, it’s real.
I’ve always […]
In which Quentin Tarantino argues that Top Gun is a subversive queer film. I’ll buy it. Almost. Also, I’ve seen Tarantino introduce films a couple of times, and I have to say, this is roughly the tone and level of frenetic gesture that he uses to describe almost all movies. It’s kind of infectious. In […]
I am very much aware of my own double self. The well-known one is very under control; everything is planned and very secure. The unknown one can be very unpleasant. I think this side is responsible for all the creative work - he is in touch with the child. He is not rational, he is […]
You may be getting the impression that all I do with my free time is surf YouTube looking for videos. That would not be entirely incorrect, though I also, you know, download music and watch actual videos on my actual DVD player. Anyhow, the above is a well-executed bit of slash video featuring Jonathan Rhys […]
While I have plenty of issues with the MPAA’s ratings system, I’m still a bit sad that Jack Valenti has died at 85. Valenti was part of the LBJ powerset, and he instituted the current Motion Picture Association of America rating system. This system, although not overtly censorship, has resulted in some pretty troubling self […]
I just learned that a piece of film music from Blow Out, the Brian De Palma tribute ot Blow Up is used in Death Proof, Tarantino’s half of Grindhouse. The composer, Pino Domaggio, worked on a number of De Palma pictures, including Body Double, Carrie and Dressed to Kill. The work Domaggio did for these […]
I watched Hustle and Flow last night, and the quality of that film somehow doubled the disappointment I felt when watching Black Snake Moan. I didn’t exactly expect Black Snake Moan to be, you know, good, but I thought I could be some sort of interesting post-exploitation thing. It was not. Watching Hustle really drove […]
The above is a video I have cited as an example of a pre-internet viral video. This brief news report on what happened when a dead whale was blasted as a means of removing it from a public beach has, for years, circulated offline via video and rumor. Now, in the era of digital, it’s […]
Last night, I got to see a new print of The Holy Mountain (1973). The director of the film, Alejandro Jodorowsky, has a cult following and actually performed the marriage of Marilyn Manson and Dita Von Tees. Jodorowsky once said that he wants from film what most people want from drugs, and I’ll buy that. […]